Secure the border first

June 29, 2013Letters to the Editor

I am so fed up with the Chinese fire drill operations of the U.S. Senate and Sen. Harry Reid. He is rushing to pass immigration legislation under the guise of fixing broken immigration laws.

What most politicians fail to mention is we have immigration laws that are not being enforced. One example of this is the 700 miles of border fence that has never been completed.

Considering all of the technological capabilities of the government, you would think monitoring our borders would be a piece of cake. Maybe they are just too busy spying on us to keep track of our borders.

One may wonder why everything is a crisis, why every piece of legislation has to be so long that no one either has the time to read it or the ability to understand when they have read it. Why do we have to pass a law to find out what is in it? Would you sign anything legally binding without reading it first?

We are constantly promised and rarely delivered the things we want in an effort to gain our support for immigration reform.

My idea is fix the fence first. This promise was made in 2006 and has yet to be fulfilled.

Once the border is secure, I think most Americans would be willing to consider legislation dealing with those who are here illegally. I am tired of empty promises from politicians who speak from both sides of their mouths. I am tired of their pandering to any group for votes. I am disappointed in Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, for his part in this Gang of Eight debacle. If he had stood firm in the secure-the-border-first idea, his credibility would not be suffering.

Please keep burning up the phone lines in Washington and remind them that they work for us — and they need to secure our borders before there can be any other debate on immigration in this country.